A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.

Every Thursday

Books

Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.

Every Friday

EqualEd

A weekly update on education, focused on solutions to inequalities.

Every Friday

Spiritual Lens

The five most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.

Every Monday

US stocks move up slightly

Dow gains 21 points, while S&P and Nasdaq also rise. BestBuy stock soars on buyout offer, while Knight Capital loses a quarter of its value, despite $400 million in financing.

Richard Drew/AP/File

In this file photo last week, specialist Peter Giacchi looks at the price of Knight at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Knight Capital announced Monday, Aug. 6, 2012, that investors have agreed to supply it with $400 million in financing, which would help the trading firm stay in business after last week's disastrous software glitch that shook US stock trading and jeopardized its future.

Loading...

August 6, 2012

By Pallavi GogoiAP Business Writer

NEW YORK

U.S. stocks edged higher on a day marked by uncharacteristic quiet following a turbulent week.

In the absence of major economic news, stocks were riding a tailwind of optimism from the most recent U.S. job numbers released last week and hope for more action by European authorities to address that region's debt crisis.

On Monday, beleaguered stock trading company Knight Capital Group said it has lined up $400 million in financing that will allow the firm to continue to operate. Knight was fighting for survival after a disastrous software glitch in its systems sent the trading of dozens of stocks into chaos last week.

Markets fell the first four days of last week after investors were disappointed by the lack of specific action from central banks in Europe and the U.S. to support the economy. The Dow lost 197 points from Monday through Thursday.

The Dow soared 217 points on Friday, however, following a surprisingly strong jobs report. The U.S. economy generated 163,000 jobs last month, the fastest pace since February and far more than economists were expecting.

The upturn was seen as a sign that the U.S. may be resilient enough to pull out of a midyear slump and grow modestly, even as the rest of the world slows down. Investors drove markets higher Monday on hopes that the positive momentum will continue.

Stock indexes also rose in Europe. Speculation has been building that the European Central Bank will support struggling countries like Spain and Italy by buying bonds issued by those governments.

Germany's DAX and the CAC-40 in France both rose a little less than 1 percent. Spain's IBEX 35 soared 4.4 percent despite a five-hour blackout from a technical problem that halted trading for much of the day.

"Mutual fund managers and hedge funds have sizable holdings in cash and they need to put those to work," said Richard Cripps, chief investment officer for Stifel Financial. "There's optimism over the progress made in Europe and also constructive news from the U.S. economy."

Knight Capital's stock fell 98 cents, or 24 percent, to $3.07 Monday. It's down 70 percent since last Tuesday, the day before a software malfunction caused its computer systems to send erroneous orders flooding into the market.

Knight said a group of investors agreed to buy $400 million of preferred stock that can be converted into a 73 percent stake in the firm.

Knight takes orders for stock trades from brokers like TD Ameritrade and E-Trade and banks. It then routes them to the exchanges where stocks are traded, like the New York Stock Exchange. Its future was thrown into doubt after the trading malfunction cost the firm $440 million.

Going in the opposite direction was Best Buy Co., which jumped 13 percent after founder and former CEO Richard Schulze offered to buy the company at a premium to its stock price. Schulze, 71, is its largest shareholder with a 20 percent stake.

— Tyson Foods fell $1.23, or 8 percent, to $14.17 after the nation's biggest meat company reported that income dropped 61 percent in the quarter partly due to lower U.S. consumer demand for chicken and beef.

— Pluristem Therapeutics climbed 49 cents, or 15 percent, to $3.80. The Israeli drugmaker said a cancer patient's life was saved with the use of certain cells it had developed.